Peter Jackson now has another thing in common with Beatles’ late frontman Paul McCartney: They both were personally responsible for the release of the rare footage of the legendary band that had been preserved in a film vault in the 1960s.
“The box of tape was in the vault for 50 years,” Jackson told ‘Fox and Friends’ Friday morning. “He’s around the same age as me, so I know that it must have been in that vault for 50 years because he’s around the same age as me.”
McCartney revealed in an interview on his upcoming exhibit in London, simply called Paul McCartney: Words and Music, that the Beatles took out tape for an audition for a TV show in 1962.
The footage was in the vault for 50 years. pic.twitter.com/VYRq6L32Dg — Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) December 18, 2018
“I’ve got this but I won’t show you,” McCartney said. “This is 50 years later and we’re breaking the news that they released this.”
Jackson said he was approached with the idea by McCartney’s son, James, in 2016 and was contacted in the spring of this year to discuss his interest in obtaining the tape.
“I want to show that film in the U.S. which I haven’t had access to since the 1960s,” Jackson said. “So that was a bit of a hurdle, basically.”
A few weeks ago, Jackson and his team from Leavesden Studios received a box of the footage to begin analyzing.
“We’re now starting to get down to that bit of the release,” Jackson said. “Some of that is very early footage of the Fab Four actually saying hello to the people that they’ve never said hello to before, for the first time.”
‘Fox and Friends’ co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt, and Jackson appeared at the top of the show Friday.